Catholic Meat Ban Relaxed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 16

Catholic Meat Ban Relaxed

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 8. Catholics throughout New Zealand may eat meat on Fridays, except during Lent. This decision was made at the Catholic bishops* conference in Wellington.

The secretary of the conference, the (Most Rev. O, N. Snedden) said in a statement the archbishops and bishops of New Zealand had announced that the law obliging Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays would in future apply to the Fridays in Lent.

the only days in which the rule of fasting as well as that of abstinence would apply would be Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The secretary said that the

matter of altering the general law of Friday abstinence had been, under consideration since the final session of the second Vatican Council in 1965 and since then in several countries changes similar to that now announced for New Zealand had been applied. In New Zealand, the question of Friday abstinence had been carefully considered by the archbishops and bishops in the light of local conditions and of the principles laid down by the Apostolic Constitution on Fast and Abstinence, issued by Pope Paul VI in February, 1966. Essentially, this document was a directive on the continuing importance of penance and self-sacrifice in Christian life and it left open to local bishops’ conferences to encourage forms of penitential pra-tice more suited to the realities of modern living. The alteration in the law

concerning Friday abstinence should not be interpreted as a relxation of penitential discipline. The secretary added in his statement that the bishops of New Zealand had planned, for later this month in Christ-

church, a conference on overseas aid in connection with the church’s peace and justice commission and it was intended to prepare directives on programmes of self-sacri-fice and generous giving for the needy of the world.